


queen and consequence

by screamlet



Category: The Princess Diaries - All Media Types
Genre: Banter, Breaking the Fourth Wall, F/M, Fluff, Movie Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 14:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Heartblaze presents an Original Movie Event: <i>Queen and Consequence: The Story of Mia, Nicholas, and the Throne of Genovia</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	queen and consequence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [withthepilot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/withthepilot/gifts).



Mia was alternately sprinting and speed walking through the palace. She would slow down when she passed staff and repeat under her breath, “A queen does not shriek, a queen does not shriek, a queen does not shriek,” until she was free to sprint again. 

“NICHOLAS,” she finally shrieked when she reached the east wing of the palace. She rushed into the room she had given him to use as an office for all his country gentleman/official royal boyfriend needs. His pouf of hair looked up and his eyes swiftly followed, eyebrows lost somewhere in between.

“Is something on fire?” he asked.

“MOVE,” she said, pointing to his computer. “I need to show you something.”

“Something” was a hot pink and pastel flash-heavy website with heavily made-up versions of themselves gazing into each other’s eyes and into the distance/future while deeply romantic music played. The browser crashed and Mia restarted it instantly because she couldn’t stop staring at the cheesy scripted headline that Nicholas had to appreciate:

**_A Heartblaze Original Movie_ **

**_Queen and Consequence: The Story of Mia, Nicholas, and the Throne of Genovia_.**

Nicholas stared at the screen. Mia stared at Nicholas. 

“The Valentine card people?” he asked. “Is this legal?”

“I have Lord Crawley looking into it,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “More importantly: is this not the greatest thing you’ve ever seen?”

“Well,” he said.

She spun in his chair and looked up at him. “Seriously?”

Nicholas bit his lip before he said, “I have something I want to say, but you can’t make fun of me.”

“That’s not how this works,” she replied. “We know the taste of pear-flavored lube. _Everything is game_.”

She let him have another ten seconds of quiet sighing and deliberation before he finally said:

“What will your grandmother say?”

*

Nicholas held the phone at an arm’s length while the former Queen of Genovia, who struck fear into his heart and soufflés, cackled the most elegant of dowager cackles out of the speakerphone. “Joseph, come here, you must hear this,” she said in between tears.

“I think that’s official royal permission to think this a completely hilarious development in our relationship and royal legacy,” Mia informed him. “Unless you want me to get the royal seal and hot wax and stamp it on your chest.”

“Maybe not with the same seal you use to declare things law,” Nicholas said.

“Good idea.”

“I can hear you,” Joe said over the phone. “That is less funny than the movie. Nicholas, did you forget the little talk we had in the stables?”

“Nope, never, I could never, I would never, and I hope your royal selves are doing very well and enjoying retirement and the mountain air and the gift basket we sent for your birthday, sir, which was 100% Mia’s idea and I completely supported her and continue to support her forever, so. That’s fine and we’re fine and our lives are wonderful and we are still holding strong at ZERO armed coups of the government,” Nicholas said. “And we hope you’re well?”

“I’m just not asking,” Mia decided. “The less I know, the better.”

“Dear, see if you can obtain screening copies,” Clarisse said, the politeness of her ignoring Joe and Nicholas’s _thing_ evident even over the phone. “We’d love to see it, but we would like to avoid a big to-do over the matter by coming down into the city.”

“You just don’t want to get dragged into politics again, Grandma.”

“Traffic concerns,” Joe said over the line sagely. “Dozens of people out on the streets. It’s a pain.”

“Wow, that was convincing,” Mia laughed. 

“Not that we don’t love to see you,” Clarisse added.

Mia took over the phone and took them off speaker, which Nicholas took as an opportunity to lie on the couch and wonder what had brought him to this point in his life.

*

They solved their non-issue non-problem with the Heartblaze people in the way that all public relations fiascos were solved by people of their generation: by warmly embracing an embarrassing clusterfuck with laughter and ironic detachment. In this case, Mia and Nicholas hosted an open air screening in the city’s public gardens, sponsored by Heartblaze and publicly attended by the Queen, Lord Devereaux (“official royal _dish_ ” as Elsie Penworthy drawled from the sidelines), and the first 300 people to score a ticket in a random lottery. 

“Your Majesty,” Elsie said during the exclusive pre-event interview. “What would you say to critics that—well, that think this in any way affects your legacy as a monarch?”

“I do appreciate those critics supporting the integrity of my vast royal legacy to date,” Mia replied. “Really I do, but I would hope that what I do for my country speaks far more of my legacy to future generations than a very fictionalized and hilarious account of the…  _unique_ set of circumstances? That brought Lord Devereaux and myself together in the first place. The day we start worrying about whether commemorative plates and souvenirs got our noses right, or whether Lord Devereaux’s hair has enough fluff to it, and making a significant national issue about it—that’s the day real scrutiny should go into my work for the people of Genovia.”

“Well said, Your Majesty, _very_ well said if I may say so,” Elsie said. “Lord Devereaux? Would you like to add anything?”

“Just that my hair has _plenty_ of fluff,” he said. “And I will be issuing an official one-page guide as to how all this,” he said, motioning to his hair, “Should be depicted in proportion to the rest of my head. Expect it roughly 300 years from now.”

They made their way to the Royal Viewing Pavilion Sponsored by Heartblaze and collected a popcorn on the way there. “Oh wow,” Mia said as she tried to restrain from pouring the entire bag into her mouth all at once because, well, media event. “This is American popcorn. You can taste the Fake Butter Product and _tons_ of salt. And the artificial pear flavoring.” They sat down and she looked to Nicholas with pleading eyes. “I think I miss high fructose corn syrup. Not in everything! But a little bit! I miss that sickening aftertaste.”

“Looks like we might have to make a trip to America at some point,” Nicholas said as he tried a handful of popcorn. She swatted him away but he remained undeterred. “This does taste like… death? I’ll say death. My guess is death.”

“Embrace it, snob,” she replied. “Our children will be a quarter American and if nothing else, they will appreciate movie style popcorn and Zebra Cakes. Speaking of which, have you been working on making me the perfect Zebra Cake substitute?”

“Someone’s been sabotaging my attempts, Mia, it’s very strange,” Nicholas mused. “Tampering with the oven, replacing the sugar with salt, almost as if they _want_ to keep buying them in bulk and having them shipped here.”

“Those are for the panic room and emergency secret bomb shelter,” Mia said. “And I officially have no idea what you’re talking about, but you should keep baking things or I’ll have you executed.”

They kissed to a sudden burst of applause as the Heartblaze representative arrived to open the movie and thank them for being “such an inspiration” to the “dreams of young people” everywhere. Mia and Nicholas nodded politely, Mia adding a little queen wave of her non-popcorn-slathered hand for the audience. Then they sat back and enjoyed the film.

*

_“You LIED to me,” Mia said tearfully. “Lied to me from the first moment we met.”_

_“Mia, please, it wasn’t like that,” Nicholas said._

“Why do I sound American?” Nicholas asked. 

“You kind of do,” Mia admitted. “I mean, in real life. It comes and goes.”

“What? No I don’t.”

“It’s all right, it happens to everyone. Probably too many _Die Hard_ movies.”

“But I was _raised here_. I… why do I sound like that?”

“Shh, I’m missing the story, we’ll discuss your anxieties about cultural assimilation later.”

_“I thought you wanted me for me,” Mia said. “Not the throne. Not control over the country. I thought you wanted me.”_

_“I do,” he pleaded. “You have to understand, I didn’t go to that party to lie to you.”_

_“Didn’t you? You just happened to miss me standing next to the Queen, being presented as the princess of Genovia, and—”_

_“I shouldn’t have even danced with you that night,” Nicholas said. “Do you know how government intrigue begins? It starts with my uncle telling me there’s a young American upstart who wants to take the throne away from someone like me, someone who’s lived here their whole life, someone who knows this country because this country is their first home, their best home.”_

_“How DARE you—”_

_“I agreed with him, Mia,” Nicholas said. “I did. I thought he was right. I didn’t want a person who didn’t know anything about our country and our lives here to step in and take control, as if they knew anything about us.” Nicholas looked away desperately, clearly choked with emotion, and refused to look back as he spoke. “And then… then I saw you at that party. I didn’t see the queen, the crowns—I saw you. And I danced with you. Our plot was always going to fail because deep down I knew I couldn’t do that to you. I couldn’t hurt you.”_

“This is the _Star Trek_ guy!” Nicholas said excitedly. “I recognized him from the crying! He’s so bad at crying.”

“Seriously? It took you that long? I thought that was why you asked about the American accent. All his characters sound like they’re from the Valley.”

“Which valley?”

“...never mind. I love Anne Hathaway, though. She’s _killing it_ as me.”

“She looks like a great kisser.”

Mia glared at Nicholas silently until he kissed her cheek and said, “You’re the only Anne Hathaway knockoff I want.”

“I’m glad to hear that, because I’m the only one you’re ever going to get.”

“Good,” he said. “I doubt any of them would be this mean to me.”

“Well, not to your face.”

Nicholas kissed her again and put an arm around her shoulders. “And we lived happily ever after,” he said quietly, “With our commemorative dishes, and the first of dozens of made-for-TV melodramas, and your Zebra Cakes, and the locally sourced pear-flavored condoms, and your grandmother the dowager queen and her husband, the man who will probably end my life if you don’t get to me first, for the rest of our days.”

She sat a little closer to him and said, “Yeah, that sounds okay.”


End file.
